Is your client looking for daily care for a loved one who needs it as the years go by? One parent was left alone at the end of his life and feels abandoned. The family can’t take care of him and he/she can no longer do without help, so they decided to place him/her in a nursing home? This decision is worth considering. Before making a final verdict, it is necessary to look at the individual pros and cons.
Retirement home – one caregiver for several clients
The biggest disadvantage of nursing homes is that one carer take care of several patients at the same time. She/he does not have the capacity to approach single senior individually, as it is in the case with the full-day caregiving in the home environment of the client. There are ten patients requiring care of a single carer. During full-time in-home caregiving, which is the second option of possible care, the senior does not feel useless like the one who has been left behind and left to live out his or her days in an environment with strangers.
Charges in facilities for the elderly
Facilities for the elderly are not for free and charge various fees. Care in a nursing home may therefore not be cheaper than 24-hour care, although this is generally accepted. With the rising prices because of the current situation – life after pandemic and during the war-torn times – this price rise is not going to avoid nursing homes. Of course, the total fees also depend on the type and level of facilities in each home. State facilities invoice less than the private ones. There is an extra charge for better equipment. Sanatoriums are among the more expensive ones, however with better quality care. Residences with a pool or sauna are really expensive. Physiotherapists are usually present in these facilities and their services are not cheap as well. Additional fees are usually associated with better meals due to a specified diet, in-room television or a separate room. Sometimes the elderly pay for packages of services that they do not even use.
Retirement home and several restrictions
The disadvantage of nursing homes is often the presence of routine. The course of each day is more or less the same. Everything is set at equal intervals. Although older people may just be fine with that. In 24 hour live-in care, the variety of activities is much higher. Most of the time, seniors cannot bring their pets into the nursing home; they are attached to them, have formed a bond with them, and will miss them. In the case of 24-hour care, the pet stays with them.
Retirement home and visits
In nursing homes, visits by family members are only allowed at certain times. In most cases, there is one hour per day allowed. On weekends, the interval is slightly longer. When the carer is caring for a senior at home, family members can come to visit any time. Also, in care homes they don’t have as much freedom to talk about their requirements and cannotintervene in caregiving if something doesn’t suit them. If they are unhappy with the care in the nursing home, the only solution is to take the senior away. If we look at the recent situation with covid, it has been very complicated with visits to nursing homes. People have not been able to reach their relatives for a long time, so they could not endanger their health or that of other residents of the care home.
Unfamiliar surroundings and disorientation problems
It is true that the client has peers in the nursing home among whom she/he can find friends with whom he can talk, watch TV or play cards and chess. But maybe they’d like a bit of privacy, too. Separate rooms are usually found in more luxurious establishments, for which you have to pay extra anyway. A senior may be disoriented in the elderly home because it is an unfamiliar environment for him or her from the beginning. This of course also depends on the nature of the patient and the diagnosis. If someone has Alzheimer’s disease and disorientation problems, adapting to a stay in this facility will be very challenging. In such cases, it is better for such a person to stay at home, where they know it and where they have spent many years. That’s where they feel best. A better solution for staying in touch with peers is to keep seniors in 24-hour care, inday care centre, where he or she can spend time with friends, have a chat or even go out.
Costs in particular countries
The monthly cost of a nursing home in the Netherlands is around €7,500, in the UK it is around €6,000. For example, some homes in German-speaking countries charge fees associated with so-called investment costs for renovation. They can be compared to the maintenance fees paid in apartment buildings. Retirement homes in Germany charge around €3,000 a month. Although prices vary from county to county. Facilities in big cities like Hamburg or Munich are always more expensive than nursing homes in more rural areas. Of the more than four million German seniors who are dependent on someone else’s care, more than eight hundred thousand are cared for at their homes.
You need to consider specific pros and cons and make a decision. If you choose the 24-hour individual care option for your senior, Atena has a wide range of trusted and skilled caregivers of different nationalities to choose from.
Read on to find out why you may prefer to employ carers legally and also about the other benefits of 24-hour care at home. Visit our blog where you will find many articles that will help you learn something new.
